Pedro Cavadas Performed First Face Transplant In Spain, 8th In The World

Dr. Pedro Cavadas of Spain, (That’s him on the left, looking badass, because he is.) has just performed the first face transplant in Spain and the 8th in the world for a patient in Valencia. The 43 year-old male patient, who doctors say will have his identity revealed over their dead bodies, required a replacement from the bottom of his eyes to the back of his neck and his donor was a 35 year-old man who died in a car accident. Cavadas alleges that personal details about that donor were leaked to Spanish media, much to his chagrin, though the minister of health says it’s only given out the age and gender of the deceased. It’s no wonder that the world is fascinated by face transplants, though, the idea seeming more sci-fi than reality. But, as Dr. Cavadas says, if they keep the patient’s identity a secret, this miracle of modern science has the potential to restore some dignity and quality of life to a man who had no use of his tongue or jaw for eleven years due to complications from cancer treatment. Cavadas told the press today that the patient has seen himself in the mirror and is happy and, if things continue as they have so far, we can call this surgery a success. Cavadas is a surgical phenom who is known for directing interventions so experimental that they sound like the plot of an episode of ER. Like the one in which he kept alive a patient’s arm by temporarily implanting it on the patient’s leg, or another in which he converted a one-handed patient’s right hand into a left hand in order to move it from his right arm to his left one, after the patient had suffered a paralysis of the right half of his body. We’ll be over here reveling in our failures.

A fascinating historical footnote: Did you know that the first face transplant was actually a re-plant case in which the face of a 9 year-old girl in India was completely torn off from the scalp when her braids got caught in a grass cutting machine? HOLY FUCKING SHIT! There are pictures of her removed face in the gallery below. (If you dare.) As well as the amazing successful replant.

Click On The Image Below To See A Gallery Of Historic Face Transplant Surgeries